Declan
Picture this, if you will. I'm a sixteen year old boy, who has never gone to church in his life. And then I'm in church. I mean, that's the crux of the issue here. No one explains this stuff. Or they didn't explain it tp me. And it's not like I had much of a choice in the matter.
Yeah, maybe I could have skipped out or something. I doubt anyone would have forced me to go to church. Except you're missing one key and important fact, and that is that Maddy's my new stepsister and she's the one who first asked me if I'd be going to church that Sunday.
"Yeah, of course, Maddy," I say to her, with a nod because it seems like the right thing to do. "Church. Sunday. Cool."
And it was cool up until the end. I sit next to Maddy on the pew, basically almost touching her. Our knees touched a few times, and I get that maybe this is kind of fucked up, but I start thinking about how many weeks I can masturbate to thinking about our knees touching. If I know what it's like to have my knee touch hers, I feel like I can come up with a good approximation of what it'd be like for my hand to touch hers, maybe my arm around her shoulder, or who the fuck knows, maybe I can even imagine what it'd be like for us to kiss?
Yeah, like I said before, I was sixteen and kind of horny, so, uh...
Church goes alright. Maddy looks super fucking beautiful in her Sunday dress. I have literally never seen her in something like this before. She looks really fucking beautiful at school, but this Sunday dress is something else. It's pure and soft and she shines like she's radiance personified. There's pictures of people on the walls of the church with golden halos painted around their heads, and that's basically Maddy at this very moment. Her hair even glimmers in the sunlight shining through the stained glass windows and everything.
Service ends, and I think I do alright. I never realized how much sitting went on. There's some standing here and there, and then kneeling now and then. Praying, eyes closed, listening to the priest talk, listening to some songs from the choir, a few out loud group recitings of certain passages of scripture. I can barely follow along with that, but Maddy helps me out, and I kind of mumble my way through it.
Did you know there's school after church, too? Sunday school? Seriously, what the fuck? I go to school during the week, and now I'm supposed to go to school on Sunday? Who came up with this? Listen, Maddy, I think you're beautiful and I'm going to think about our knees touching a lot for the next few weeks, and you're my stepsister and everything now, but...
"Are you going to come to Sunday school with me, too?" she asks.
Which is how I learned that Sunday school was even a thing to begin with. After getting over my initial shock that I was now maybe expected to go to school on Sundays, I said the obvious thing.
"Sure," I reply. "That sounds like a lot of fun."
Alright, it's not so obvious. Why the fuck did I just say that? I have no clue.
"I thought we could show Declan confession," my stepfather says, with a certain tone in his voice. I didn't realize it at the time, but I now know that tone was a precursor to an ominous and doomed future, at least at the time. "Since he's never been to church before, I think a good start would be having him talk to the priest and confess his sins. Don't you agree?"
"Oh, yes!" Maddy says, giddy and clapping. "I hadn't thought of that. Do you want help, Declan? I can wait for you if that's easier."
Help? Nah, I got this. I'm a confession professional over here.
"Nah, it's cool," I say, nonchalant, trying to act awesome. "Where do I go?"
"The confessional booth is over there," my mom says, smiling at me. "Good luck!"
She points to something that looks barely bigger than a phone booth, or I guess two phone booths next to each other. Not that I've ever used a phone booth before, but you see them around sometimes, you know?
I stand slowly and head over. Also, how's confession work? I look over my shoulder, hoping for some divine guidance or something, but all I get is Maddy's glowing smile and her shimmering, stained glass, light-painted halo. She is my divine guidance, but I'm pretty sure this isn't what God had in mind for me.
Or maybe it is...
Now, stay with me for a second. Confession is about confessing. I get that part. I'm not an idiot or anything. I understand the basic act. I also know that in the movies, you see people confess a lot of crazy stuff. I was watching The Boondock Saints once, which is a great movie, and these guys are doing all sorts of insanity, but then they pray to God, go to church, all that jazz. The one dude is on The Walking Dead TV show, so he's extra badass, too.
Actually, do you think The Boondock Saints is a prequel to The Walking Dead? What if zombies are one of the signs of the apocalypse? I think I heard about that one time. The dead will rise, right? Or was that something else? I don't fucking know, this is my first time coming to church. We haven't talked about that yet.
My point is that... maybe that's what confession is about? You need to confess the absolute worst things ever, because it's for a good cause, or something.
I get the first part. I kind of end up forgetting the second part. I literally have no clue what my idea of a good cause was here, but I've resolved myself to go into this confessional booth and say the absolute worst things I can think of. I owe it to God. I don't want to be some pussy who sticks to the minor sins. I'm going all out.
I haven't murdered anyone, I haven't stolen, I'm pretty nice to my mom and stepdad, I don't get angry too much, and I'm not a jealous person, so I think that leaves me with one thing. It's like it was made for me, too. This is going to be the best confession ever.
Lust...
I step into the confessional booth, ready to bask in the gloriousness that is the divinity of confessing my great sins. Except someone else is already in there, so I don't know what the fuck is going on.
"Uh, hey?" I say to the guy sitting down.
"This is your first time?" he asks. Oh, it's the priest.
"You can tell, huh?" I say.
He grins at me, and he seems pretty nice for a priest. I didn't know priests were nice. I thought it was all fire and brimstone and that kind of thing. He seemed nice during the service, too, though.
"Use the other door, young man," he says. "Don't worry, we can take it easy for your first time. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about."
I go to the other door, open it, and step inside. There's a spot to sit, and one to kneel. I feel like kneeling is more religious or something, so I go for that one.
Once I'm all set, I say, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned."
"Very good," he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. "Did you see that in a TV show?"
"Nah, a movie," I tell him. "The Boondock Saints."
"A good movie," he says, like we're sharing a secret. "Violent, though. We must be careful about such things, my child. If we let violence into our everyday lives, it can bring us further away from the grace of God. Is that what your confession is about?"
"No, uh... wait, am I supposed to tell you when the last time I came was?" I ask him.
"I think we covered that earlier, don't you?" he asks, now with a grin in his voice.
I kind of like this priest. I don't know what I expected, but he seems nice.
And... I'm ready. I am ready to confess my sins. This is going to be a good one, Father. This'll be the best first time confession ever. Seriously, I'm impressed with myself already.
"So... the thing is..." I say, warming up to it. Don't worry, though. I've got this.
"Yes, go on," he says, patient.
"You have no idea how much I want to fuck my sister," I tell him. "Basically for the past two years I've thought about her every time I masturbate. I can't get her out of my head. It's like... you know when you see an ice cream truck and it's summer so it's really hot out? And when you get your ice cream, it's already melting, so not only do you want to lick it, but you need to or else the ice cream's going to melt all over the place. Yeah, it's like that. I don't even know. My cock gets hard just thinking about her. I just want to... I want to pull down my pants and lift up Maddy's skirt and bend her over my bed and--"
I don't get much further than that. I thought I was doing really well, too. I don't remember exactly what happens afterwards, but I'm kind of pulled out of the confessional, and then my stepdad and mom are standing nearby. Maddy isn't there, thank God. Seriously, thank you, God. My parents see me with the priest, who is looking at me like I'm demon-possessed.
"Oh no, what happened?" my mom asks. "Declan, what did you do?"
My stepdad doesn't say anything, he just watches everything unfold while he grits his teeth. I don't know what I did, but I'm really regretting doing it.
"I think we need to have a discussion," the priest says. "Can we all move into my office for this?"
Yeah...? What about my confession, though? Did I fail? Am I going to Hell now? Fuck. My first time going to church and I'm already damned to Hell for all eternity. How the fuck am I supposed to tell Maddy?
I mean, on the plus side, I guess if I'm damned to Hell I don't have to go to Sunday school. I feel like there's better ways to get out of going to Sunday school, though. I don't know what they are yet, but I was looking forward to figuring them out eventually. Now I'll never know...
Once we're all in the priest's office, which kind of reminds me of the principal's office at my high school, except with crosses and holy stuff on the walls, we start discussing matters. I didn't actually know there were matters to discuss before this, so it's all news to me.
"This... young man..." the priest says, eyeing me warily. "Declan confessed some worrisome things to me in the confessional booth just now. Generally speaking, everyone's confession is private, spoken to God through me, but in this case I worry that there's some deeper underlying issues at hand."
"Oh no," my mom says. "Oh no, Declan. What did you do? Did you murder someone?"
"Mom," I say. "What? No. I didn't murder anyone."
"What happened?" my stepdad asks, being a lot more level-headed.
"Declan professed a desire to me that I 'had no idea how much he wanted to fuck his sister,' which is as close to verbatim as I think I can get," the priest says. "Now, impure thoughts and desires are a fairly common confession that I hear about, but in this case, with incest being a concern, well..."
"Maddy?" my stepdad says, looking straight at me. "You were talking about Maddy?"
"Uh..." I say. "I think this is a really bad misunderstanding."
"It's true," my mom says, completely missing the point. "I want us all to be a family, so I'd like Declan to think of Maddy as his sister, but, well... he's really an only child. She's his stepsister, so I think he would have said that if he meant Maddy. Right, Declan?"
My stepfather isn't buying it, though. "Did you or did you not mean my daughter, Madelaine?" he asks. "Answer me, Declan."
"Ah... stepsister..." the priest says with sudden understanding. "That's much more reasonable."
Unfortunately my stepdad doesn't think this is reasonable at all. He's glaring at me, face bright red, and I'm pretty sure I can see a vein popping out of his neck his jaw is clenched so tight. Wrath is a sin, but I don't know if even God can save me from this one.
"See, uh... I thought... you know..." I say, stumbling for words. "I thought you needed to say some really bad stuff when you made your confession. Like maybe it's not worth God's time if you just say you got upset that the mailman didn't bring the new video game you just bought off of Amazon that day even though it was supposed to come yesterday, you know? So..."
The priest seems a lot more understanding now, which is pretty cool. I'm glad I'm probably not being damned to Hell for all eternity already. My mom seems to wonder what the fuss is about, too, because, like she said before, I don't technically have a sister. Maddy is great and we're a family, but it's not the same in her mind.
Thanks, Mom. I appreciate the support.
Charles Hamilton is not convinced that I'm not going to do untoward things with his daughter, though. I totally get it, man. I really do, but I also don't want to die today.
"Maddy's just really pretty," I say. Yes, I'm going with that. "She looked nice in her Sunday dress, and it's not like I was thinking impure thoughts or anything." Thanks for that, Father. Those are good words. I'm learning quick. "I think I just don't really understand how confession works. I'm sorry I screwed it up. I'll try better next time."
Like they say, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. This is mostly true, except when you're trying to ask your stepfather forgiveness for telling a priest that you want to fuck your stepsister. In that case, if you want my honest opinion I'd just not ask for forgiveness or permission or anything. Just don't even do it. No good can come from it. Trust me on this one. I know.
Somehow the priest convinces everyone that it was just a huge misunderstanding. Maddy did look very lovely in her dress today, didn't she? Yes, Father, she did. Lovely in a pure, completely unfuckable way. Who would even think about such a thing!
Not me. Nope. No fucking way...
When I finally meet up with Maddy at Sunday school, she looks a little worried. "What happened?" she asks. "Is everything alright?"
"Oh, me? Yeah, everything's great," I lie. That's what my next confession is going to be: I'll tell the priest I lied. Let's just keep it toned down from now on.
Maddy laughs and touches my shoulder, leaning close to whisper into my ear. "I'm glad. I was worried. There was kind of a commotion earlier, I guess. Did you have a lot to talk about with Father Patch? I hope you haven't been up to anything too bad, Declan..."
The way she says the last part both worries and intrigues me. Like... what if I were up to something bad, Maddy? Would you join me, or would you try to save me?
Knowing Maddy, it's probably the latter, but my horny and hormonal sixteen year old mind just liked to see things in the horniest way possible, so, uh... you know. Even after almost being murdered by my stepfather, it's not like I can turn that shit off.
Sorry, God. I'm a work in progress here. I'll do better in the future, I swear.
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